


Chameleon

by xXQueenofDragonsXx



Series: The Lost Grimes [1]
Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Amnesia, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, BAMF Carl Grimes, Blood and Gore, Blood and Injury, Canon-Typical Violence, Carl Grimes Lives, Carl Grimes Needs a Hug, Carl Grimes-centric, Comfort/Angst, Dark Carl Grimes, Emotional Manipulation, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Hurt Carl Grimes, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Torture, Long Lost/Secret Relatives, Manipulation, Memory Loss, Mute Carl Grimes, Muteness, Near Death Experiences, Negan Being Negan (Walking Dead), Night Terrors, One-Eyed Carl Grimes, POV Carl Grimes, Parent Michonne (Walking Dead), Parent Rick Grimes, Presumed Dead, Protective Carl Grimes, Protective Rick, Sad Carl Grimes, Sad with a Happy Ending, Saviors Member Carl Grimes, Separations, Sexual Abuse, Sexual Assault, Suicidal Thoughts, Teen Carl Grimes, Violence, but still mute, not permanent
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-02
Updated: 2021-02-10
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:28:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 5
Words: 21,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28499052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xXQueenofDragonsXx/pseuds/xXQueenofDragonsXx
Summary: A boy wakes up all alone on a beach with no memory of his life before that moment, and with half of his face gone. He doesn't remember a single thing that lead to him losing his memory or his eye, nor does he really care. He soon learns that this world isn’t at all kind, and he adapts to it. Found and saved by Negan, he learns to survive in this undead world. Things go well, and he does his job as Negan's right hand man without complaint. But things, obviously don't stay that way.The boy steps out of the RV behind Negan, and his gaze is immediately drawn to a man sitting in the line-up before them.He looks... familiar. But he doesn't know how.The man looks up, sees him.He gasps."Carl?"
Relationships: Carl Grimes & Judith Grimes, Carl Grimes & Michonne, Carl Grimes & Negan, Carl Grimes & Rick Grimes, Enid/Carl Grimes, Negan/Negan's Wives (Walking Dead), Rick Grimes/Michonne
Series: The Lost Grimes [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2087580
Comments: 45
Kudos: 53





	1. Every night I feel it creeping in

**Author's Note:**

  * For [FornaxGreenQueen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FornaxGreenQueen/gifts).



> Fornax... you asked for a Carnid story where they both live... here it is.
> 
> I'm sorry... this is gonna be super angsty. It'll end happy, I promise.

* * *

When he wakes, he can't even remember his own name.

That's the first thing he knows.

He's in pain -- that's the second thing he knows. It's a violent, burning pain that wreaks complete and total havoc on his entire body with every movement, no matter how big or small it may be. It spreads down his spine like a wildfire in a dry grassland, spiraling into little, minuscule webs across his skin in the most random of places. Every single burst of pain causes his hands to shake and his chest to shudder as he struggles to draw in even the smallest of breaths. The right half of his face writhes in unimaginable pain, and the metallic smell of blood hangs in the air alongside the unmistakable and violently hated stench of rot.

How he even knows what rot smells like is a complete mystery to him. He tries straining his mind, tries coming up with even the smallest of solutions to find out how -- to find out why -- everything is hurting so much, how he had even gotten here, but he soon finds that his mind is entirely blank.

Empty. Void. Blank. It doesn't really matter. The third thing he knows is that he can't remember a single damn thing. He knows nothing but the pain, cold, and misery he had been introduced to in the first few seconds he can actually remember being alive. His head is an empty shell, with no memories of anything but now. No memories of the person he might have once been, no feelings of happiness and wonder or anything like that. Everything's just _gone._ Wiped right out of existence.

Something icy, crisp, and wet laps at his feet, and he flinches back, not expecting the cold water to shock him as it had just done. Now that he thinks about it, his whole body feels as if it were frozen solid. He shifts, trying to lift his head up and gasping weakly at the sudden lightheadedness that befalls him. 

Rolling onto his side, he feels his stomach heave. He then tries to push himself to his feet, only to fall back down as the pain becomes next to unbearable. Gritting his teeth, he tries again, his whole body protesting at the actions. His muscles burn, his eye waters, and his joints pop, and another pained gasp forces its way through his lips as he manages to pull himself into a sitting position. 

He forces his half-lidded eye to open fully _(why can't he see through his other eye? Why did his face hurt so much?)_ He gasps, grimacing as the motion causes the right side of his face to flare with pain as he takes in his surroundings. It's dark -- that's the first thing he notices. He turns slightly, jerking his head and trying to get a good look around. While doing so, he accidentally glances up. The night sky is glowing with glimmering and shining stars, and the full moon is hanging high in the sky, the brightest of them all. He stares up at it with one blue eye, blinking slowly.

After a few moments, he tears his eye away, turning more, and as he does so, his hand slips off a cold, wet rock, and he tumbles down, falling into a pool of shallow water, banging his stomach hard on the stone as he fell. A scream of pain builds up in his throat, but something inside him -- a faint whisper in his mind that he almost doesn't hear -- stops him from letting it out. Almost as if it knows something that he doesn't. Like an instinct buried deep inside him that he can't quite uncover.

He forces himself up to his knees, a whimper passing through his lips as his body seizes up in agony. He reaches up one of his hands to cradle his head, and the brunet blinked a few times, trying to clear the sand, water, and salt out from his eye. The water laps at his stomach -- icy, dark, and cold -- but he ignores it in favor of taking in his new surroundings. 

Rocks. Rocks. More rocks. Water. There's a large expanse of sand in front of him, and it stretches out for what seems to be forever in the blackness of the night, seemingly endless, though he doubted it was. In fact, somewhere in the distance, he can spot a group of trees lining the edge of the sand, but it's too dark to make much out. 

He pushes away a long, twisted strand of dark hair that had fallen across his face, obscuring his vision. An arm winds itself around his stomach, and he reaches his other hand out, grasping the wet sand from underneath his knees as he tries to push himself to his feet. His legs are shaky and weak, and he soon finds himself collapsing back into the water, a scream escaping his lips as he falls and echoing into the cold, dark world he'd been born into. 

His hands fly up to his mouth, muffling the sound as best he could despite the saltwater that now tainted his hands. Something inside him is commanding him to shut up, and a flicker of fear forms in his gut at the strange feeling. There's something bad out here, something dangerous. He doesn't know what it is or who, but he just knows. Or rather, his mind knows. He only knows that he doesn't know where or who he is. 

Sniffling, he pulls himself back up his feet. More slowly, this time -- as to not fall over as he had just done. The water laps at his ankles, but he ignores it in favor of taking a few small steps forward. His feet moved, although it felt as if they were made of stone, just dragging in the sand with every movement. He only succeeded in taking a few more steps before he had to sit back down again, the world spinning around him like a churning river in a storm.

_The rain poured down incessantly, falling in big, icy droplets that splattered upon impact and soaked the world around it. The boy raised a hand to shield his face from the downpour, adjusting the hat seated atop his head as he stared down at the roaring river that rushed by violently below. A hand landed on his shoulder, and he jumped, swiveling his head around to meet a pair of shining blue eyes that were flickering with worry._

The pain and dizziness overcame him once more as he's pulled out of this brief flash of memory. He cradles his head in his hands, tangling his fingers in strands of his hair as he tries to clear his mind. His eyes start to sting, burn, and water as flakes of sand and droplets of saltwater snuck into them. He hisses in pain, flinching back at the sensation. He hates saltwater. And sand, for that matter. They're both sticky, uncomfortable, and irritating. 

He wipes his face, another pained hiss escaping him as the water seeps into a wound on his face. He pulls away, eyeing the blood that now coats his fingers. He tries wiping it off on his shirt -- a blue one, both ragged and horribly torn -- but the red liquid remains stuck to his skin. He scowls but then reaches up his other hand to try and scrape off the small grains of sand that still clings to his face. Like the blood, the course grains remain -- glued in place by the water, blood, and sweat that stuck to his skin.

The boy grimaces, letting his hands drop down to his sides and back into the sand. There's a salty taste that lingers on his tongue, and he gags, digging his fingers into the sand. He spits on the sand to expel the saltwater from his mouth. The taste is as horrible and as foul as the dead that now roamed the once thriving planet. He frowns at the comparison. That can't be right -- the dead don't move, they can't wander. So why did that comparison even come to mind?

An image suddenly fills his mind, of an old barn that is teeming with people -- but they're not people. They look like people, but they're not. There are bits of skin missing, some of them even missing limbs, and their skin is much too rotten. Hisses and groans escape from them, and a child -- a little girl around his age -- wanders out from the open doors of the barn, a red and oozing chunk of flesh ripped out from her shoulder. Someone out of view cries out, and the image of the girl and the barn falls away.

His body heaves suddenly, his eye blowing wide and a scream caught on the tip of his tongue. _What was that?_ He wonders, his mind racing with all sorts of horrified thoughts. _What was wrong with that girl? With the rest of those people?_ He squeezes his eye shut, trying desperately to summon some kind of answer from out of the empty depths of his mind. But no matter how hard he tries to find some sort of solution, he comes up with nothing. 

_The group of thirteen continued to march along despite the raging storm, the cold slowly beginning to freeze the tips of their noses and fingers. There was no telling how long they'd been walking, minds numb along with a majority of their bodies. The group just continued to move along, despite the aching and burning pain. The groans of the dead trailing behind them were the only things that stopped them from slowing. They needed to find shelter. Nothing mattered but that._

Another wave of dizziness overcame him, and he stumbles to his feet. He skittishly glances over to the dark forest at the edge of the sand, a feeling of foreboding falling over him. Whatever those things were, those... monsters. They were lingering somewhere in that forest. Maybe they hadn't noticed him yet, but it would only be a matter of time before one of those things wandered out here. He did not know what they were, but what he does know is that they were drawn by the scent of blood, something he was practically coated in.

_I need to get out of here,_ he thinks, inhaling sharply as a sudden wave of pain rolls back over him. He rubs his hands over his arms, trying to rid himself of the numbness that had slowly begun to take over due to the cold. _It's not safe._

He tore his eyes away from the forest, taking three clumsy steps forward in the opposite direction of the treeline. His feet slosh in the cold water, rendering them numb, and the sand clings to his toes, but he pays it no mind as he walks. His entire body aches, and with every step, no matter how small, the pain only increases. But he continues on. 

He passes the furthest point the roaring waves could reach on the shoreline. The water a mere trickle around his feet now. As he walks, however, he starts becoming more and more aware of the wound on his face -- dripping with blood down his neck and onto the sand, staining it red. The pain gets much worse too, much, much worse -- almost unbearable. But he doesn't mind. The wound reminds him that he's here. That he's alive and present in this dark, dark world and not just drifting around in eternal blackness. 

Without realizing it, he falls to his knees. The course sand sticks to his skin as soon as they make contact. He gasps, fingers digging into the wet sand in an attempt to keep himself grounded. He blinks, black dots dancing in the corner of his vision. 

He shakes his head, trying to stop the blackness from overtaking him. But despite his best efforts, the corners of his vision begin to darken, and his thoughts slowly become muddled. Exhaustion is -- bit by bit -- overtaking every part of him, and he already feels himself slipping despite his insistence to do the opposite.

Despite his attempts to fight through the exhaustion, the darkness soon entirely takes over, and his whole world turns black.

* * *

Through the darkness, he dreams. Or rather, he remembers.

_He raises up the gun he had been given up in front of him, taking in a deep breath as he aims. Shane -- no, the walker -- Shane was dead. His father had killed him to defend himself. The walker snarls soundlessly from behind his oblivious father, eyes white and dull. Lifeless. Dead. He ignores his father's pleas to lower the gun, instead carefully moving his finger over the trigger. A soft wind blows from behind him, and he exhales slowly, finger pressing down on the trigger and-_

Flashes of his life came back to him in snippets -- disjointed and out of place. Almost like it was a puzzle that was missing a piece. Forever unfinished despite his best efforts to put it back together. Flashes of his life that didn't make any sense to him at all.

_He holds his little sister in his arms, staring in awe at the small being in his arms. She was so tiny -- so fragile. It was hard to believe that one could start out this little. He reaches up a finger, watching with a grin on his face as Judith's tiny hands wrap around it. Suddenly, he feels an overwhelming sense of sadness and grief wash over him. Why is it that only he and his father got to meet her? Why couldn't his mom have held her in her arms too? Still, as he stares at the little girl wrapped up in his arms, he vowes to never let any harm fall upon her. That, as long as he lived, he would protect her with everything he had._

He remembers names: Shane, Sophia, Michonne, Judith... but he had no idea of who they belonged to. He knew Judith was the baby -- his little sister -- but the rest? He had no clue.

He still couldn't remember his own name.

* * *

He awoke as a loud groaning sounded somewhere nearby, sending a horrible feeling of dread into the pit of his stomach. A thread of familiarity formed inside him, but he didn't know why. It ringed around his mind constantly without pause. Almost as if something like a gun had gone off in his head. And the sound was now bouncing around the walls of his skull, making it difficult to hear, let alone understand, what was going on around him.

Somehow, he manages to pry his eye open, a quiet groan escaping his lips as he struggles to push himself to his knees. A frown crosses over his features, and funny black dots dance dizzily in the spot where his right eye should have been as he tries to get a good look at his surroundings -- to find the source of the noise so he can stop it. 

He feels his heart stop.

Stumbling out from the treeline is a group of terrifyingly distorted people. No... no, they aren't people. They are the ones that he had seen in the image of the barn -- the monsters. These are the monsters. People don't look like they do: they don't walk around with gray, sunken in skin or gleaming dead eyes. They don't walk around with limbs and organs missings, with blood dripping down their faces. These may have once been people, but now they are only monsters, only-

_Walkers._

The term comes to mind almost instantly as he stares at the rotted creatures emerging from the woods with slow, clumsy steps -- teeth snapping together as low groans escape their lips. He doesn't know where it comes from or why he knows the term, but he doesn't have the time to really care.

He may not know a lot of things, but what he does know is that he can't stay here any longer. These things are dangerous, and while he may not know what will happen if they get their hands on him, he knows that whatever it is will not be pleasant. So he, using every ounce of strength that he still has in him, pushes himself to his feet. The boy stumbles, and one of the walkers let out a low snarl, clearly having just noticed him, and immediately starts moving in his direction, the others following in suit. 

_Time to go,_ he tells himself, beginning to stumble off in the opposite direction. His body protests at his movements, but he doesn't pay it any mind. He's more focused on getting as far away from these things as he possibly can. He'll worry about the rest later. If there even is one. For all he knows, he could just pass out again, and those walkers would find him. He would be a goner if that happened. 

So he keeps moving. He limps down the sandy beach, the sand getting stuck between his toes. He stumbles, gritting his teeth but continuing on even as the urge to fall over and sleep becomes next to overwhelming. It's a miracle he doesn't end up doing it anyway, but somehow, he manages to stay conscious. For that, he is grateful. 

It's hard to keep walking due to what bad shape he is in: he's dizzy, everything hurts, his throat is dry, and his stomach twists and turns with hunger. But he can't do anything about it. He has no food, no water -- all he can do is keep on moving. Keeping walking. 

_Stay alive -- that's all I need to do,_ that's what he tells himself, _don't let the walkers catch up to you, and you'll be just fine._

At some point, he must make it to the forest because the next thing that he knows is that he's surrounded by towering trees, dirt stuck between his toes along with the sand and the bushes scratching at his legs. He can still hear the walkers pursuing him, can still hear their wheezing breaths and low, hungry growls, but he keeps on putting one foot in front of the other, making sure the walkers stay far behind him. 

Eventually, he realizes he has lost track of how long he had been walking for. That, for some reason, doesn't bother him as much as it probably should. He can't even remember who he is -- that's much more worrying than the former. All he is aware of is the crippling pain in his face, the aching throb in his limbs, the awful smell of rot, and the low groans of the dead. He focuses on the sounds of the dead, using it as a reminder of why he can't just fall over and sleep. He swallows, grimacing at the dry feeling it leaves behind and trying his hardest to ignore the agonizing burn that had started to settle into his lungs. He has more important things to worry about.

He reaches a small grass clearing. The grass is dry and prickly beneath his feet, and his breathing becomes more and more labored with every step that he takes. He finds himself back in the shadows of the trees in a few short minutes, and he nearly sobs in relief as he's blocked from the burning sunlight by the thick canopy above. 

His face is throbbing even more now, aching and pulsing with every heartbeat -- he doesn't even know why. There's something wrong with his vision too, there seems to be a large blind spot on the right side of his face, and he can't see anything to the right of his nose. Briefly, he wonders if the eye is even there anymore. Now that he thinks about it, he finds himself unable to stop.

For some reason, the idea that he may or may not be missing an eye doesn't bother him as much as it should have. He wonders what had happened that caused this, but other than that simple curiosity, he feels absolutely nothing but pain when it comes to the eye. He wonders if that's a good thing or not.

Something in the depths of his mind tells him that it isn't.

It doesn't make him feel any different.

So he just keeps walking.

And walking.

And walking..

And walking...

* * *

Eventually, he finds a road (how he even knows what that is baffles him,) and he starts walking down that. The pavement burns the skin of his feet, but he ignores the discomfort. He makes himself move, trying his best to ignore the overwhelming exhaustion that had begun to finally creep in. 

A few more minutes of walking leads to him finding a truck (once again, he has no idea how he even knows what this is) abandoned on the side of the road. He heads toward it, throwing open the door with a surprising amount of ease and climbing inside. He shuts the door behind him, resting his head on the seat as he lets his eye fall shut, exhaling slowly in relief.

The boy ends up falling asleep in the truck, even as the walkers try pushing in on the door, and when he wakes, the sun has just started to set. Briefly, he wonders how long he's slept for, but the boy finds that he doesn't really care. Instead, he blinks open his eye, sitting up slightly and ignoring the walkers banging on the side of the door as he takes a look around, trying to gather up the pieces of his already scattered mind. 

The truck is dusty yet surprisingly clean despite it, and slowly, he finds himself turning his head and looking toward the back of the vehicle. There are no backseats -- instead of that, there is a small space, and within that space is a series of cardboard boxes piled up against each other, and after a second, he counts four of them in total. He finds himself leaning over, pulling the nearest box towards him and trying his best to pry it open. 

After a few minutes of struggling, he manages to get the thing open and begins sorting through the boxes' contents: two water canteens, a half-empty bag of crackers, a packet of cigarettes, a lighter, a hunting knife, and two cans of pears. Both of the waters are full, and he wastes no time in getting one of them open, pressing it to his lips and draining the whole thing eagerly. He coughs and splutters when he puts the canteen down, but already he can feel his head clearing itself of the pounding headache from before.

He also takes the crackers, finishing up the few that remained. They are stale, but he doesn't care as long as he gets something into his stomach. He reaches in again, tucking the lighter into his pocket before closing his fingers around the handle of the knife.

Curiously, he holds it up to his remaining eye, studying it. The blade is stained with old blood, but whether it's walker blood, animal blood, or human blood, he doesn't know, nor does he really care. He flips it around in his hands, humming with satisfaction at the feel of a weapon in his hands once more -- because now he has something to defend himself with. 

One last time, he reaches into the box, lifting up one of the cans of pears and opening it up eagerly. He wrinkles his nose at the sight of the fruit inside, and he soon finds out why as he takes his first bite. The thing tastes foul, but he finds himself reaching into the can again, eating yet another one of the fruits. He's starving, and starving people can't really be all that picky when it comes to food. So he sucks it up and takes another bite. Despite his apparent distaste for the fruit, he ends up draining the whole can within a few short minutes.

He sets the empty can of pears aside, glancing up at the window and grimacing at the sight of the rotted hands banging against it. He turns away from the boxes, keeping a hand on the knife as he settles back down in the passenger seat of the truck. Despite having just woken up, he feels the exhaustion roll over him once again, and he finds himself slipping back into darkness. He tries to keep himself awake, but his attempts are futile. So he gives up and lets himself sleep.

The last thought that flickers through his mind before he falls back asleep is that he misses his dad. Whoever he may be.


	2. Like the smoke foretells the fire, the storm follows the winds

He wakes up to the sound of groans outside the truck.

His remaining eye snaps open as soon as he registers the sound, his breath catching as he shifts around in the seat he's in, panic, for a second, overwhelming him. Then his gaze lands on the truck window, stained with all sorts of dirt and grime, and a rotted hand slams into the glass with a muted thud. He feels himself start to relax almost immediately, tongue darting out from his mouth and wetting his lips as he settles back against the car seat. 

Then, something wet and sticky lands on his hand.

He looks down.

It's blood.

He frowns, confusion spreading over him like a tidal wave. But then, he feels something wet trickle down the side of his face, and he lifts his hand up, gritting his teeth as his fingertips come into contact with the area around his eye, but not directly on it. After a moment, he realizes that he can't feel any skin there; it's just flesh and blood. The touch makes the wound burn, and he pulls his hand from his face, frowning when his fingertips come away bloody.

That's not good. 

Briefly, he wonders how long he's had this wound for and why he hasn't died from it already. But he's alive and clearly not suffering (much) from the symptoms of blood loss, so he doesn't think about it for long. Still, he probably shouldn't be leaving an injury like this one so open. If something gets into it, he could get an infection. And seeing as he doesn't have any medicine to treat himself with, that's honestly the very last thing that he needs right now.

Slowly, the brunet pushes himself back up into a kneeling position, turning his head to the remaining three boxes in the back of the truck. Hopefully, whoever had packed these things had put bandages of some kind inside one of them. Then again, any type of medicine would do just fine. So he leans over, carefully pulling one of them closer to him. When it's close enough, he lifts it into his arms -- it weighs a surprising amount, and he nearly drops it. But somehow, he manages not to, and he grins, plopping back down in the car seat and placing the box carefully into his lap.

He picks up his knife, wedging it under the tape holding the box shut and slowly starts running it down the top. He's able to open it not long after that, and he puts his knife to the side, focusing his attention on the supplies that this second box may or may not hold. There isn't much inside, unfortunately: three completely full canteens of water, a can of peaches, and a broken picture frame with a crumpled image inside.

Slowly, he finds himself lifting the broken picture frame into his hands, staring at the image blankly. In it, a dark-haired man and a pretty blonde woman are sitting on a bench, a little black-haired girl seated in the man's lap. _A family,_ he realizes sadly, probably the family of whoever owned this truck. They probably didn't get a happy ending. He wonders what happened to them.

Nothing good, that was for sure.

After a second, he finds his mind drifting to his own family. If he even had one. Was he an orphan? Or did he have a family, but they all ended up dying at one point. What if they're monsters now too? A chill races down his spine at the thought, and he gives a quick, nervous glance toward the walkers banging on the window. Did his family die and become walkers? 

He strains his mind, tries to come up with some sort of answer to the question. His thoughts comes up empty, not even a voice or a face or anything like that. He can't recall anything other than the chubby-cheeked little girl in the brief flashes of memory he'd had since waking up on that shore -- but the brunet can't remember her name despite his best efforts... it starts with a 'J' though, he can remember that much.

So he has a sister, and he knows that for a fact. 

He wonders what happened to her.

He tries not to think about it too hard.

Slowly, he places the picture frame back into the box, taking the can of peaches and water canteens out, and instead puts them into the other one he opened, now sitting at his feet. He wants to have all his supplies in one place if possible. He wishes that he had a bag, though, that would make things so much easier.

He sits back up, pulling the third of the boxes closer to him. He picks it up, puts it into his lap -- this one's lighter, so he doesn't hold much hope for it -- and opens it up with his knife. He peers inside and is pleasantly surprised: there's a gun in there with a few bullets scattered around, a small pocketknife, and a first aid kit wedged into the corner. 

Despite his urge to grab the gun first, he picks up the first aid kit, popping it open and peering inside. It doesn't look very used, a couple of things are missing, but otherwise, it still has pretty much everything inside. And while he doesn't know what half of what is in the kit even is, one of the things he does recognize is the thick bandages (gauze?) tucked into the corner. 

He picks it up instantly, staring at it for a few long moments. He doesn't really know how he's supposed to go around wrapping his head with it -- it would be easier if he had a mirror. Still, he knows he has to try. So he huffs, straightening himself up and mentally preparing himself for a long few hours of trying and failing to get this thing on his head.

Surprisingly enough, it doesn't take hours for him to get it. He struggles a lot, but after at least forty or so minutes, he actually manages to get the thing wrapped around his head. As he does this, he finds that wrapping the bandage comes surprisingly easy to him. Maybe he's done something like this before? But clearly not on his own face if the way the gauze pulls at his hair says anything about it. In general, it feels super weird on his face and kind of itchy, but the fact that he has something covering the gaping wound makes him feel so much better already.

It might not do much, but he feels a little less exposed than he had before.

It feels nice.

* * *

He sticks around in the truck for a couple more hours, waiting for the walkers to leave the area. He ends up ducking into the small space behind the seats, something inside telling him that the walkers won't ever go away if they can still see him, and true enough, after a couple hours of being unable to sense him at all, they begin to lose interest. 

He opens up the last box while he waits for them to wander away. Inside it is another pack of cigarettes, a small stuffed bear, an empty can of soda, a notebook, a pen, and a plastic bag inside filled with various types of canned food. He quickly piles the rest of his supplies into the plastic bag before letting his head fall back against the truck floor and settling back down again, staring up at the car roof with not even his own memories to keep him company.

After another few hours of waiting, his boredom finally begins to get to him, and he sits back up and pulls the mostly empty box to him. He picks up the notebook, flipping open the first page and staring curiously down at the dark blue scribbles inside. It takes him a moment, but he soon realizes he can't even understand what the scribbles mean in the first place.

Something inside tells him that he should know what they mean. But he doesn't know why. 

Some of the scribbles look familiar. They're words, the brunet slowly starts to realize after a moment, and while something inside can recognize a few of the individual ones -- 'dead,' 'living,' 'family, and a few others -- it's not enough for him to actually understand what is written down on the paper. This makes him really upset for some odd reason. Which is kind of weird, seeing as everything else hadn't bothered him as much as this does. Not even him losing an eye garnered this kind of reaction from him. 

He flips through the pages, seeing the same unintelligible writing within most of the pages. The scribbles seem to be getting more and more frantic as he goes on, and eventually, he reaches the halfway point of the notebook, but there isn't anything there. It's completely empty -- like the person writing it hadn't gotten the chance to put anything else down.

And now that he thinks about it, that's most likely what had happened. The person had died before they had been able to finish filling the notebook.

He wonders how.

He puts the notebook back down into the box, pulling out the gun from before into his hands. Immediately, he finds himself checking if it's loaded -- it is -- and he goes through the movements with a surprising amount of ease, and it makes him wonder if he'd handled guns before. The brunet frowns before concluding that he had, and he puts the gun into his lap, switching on the safety as he did so.

After another hour or so, he gets up, ignoring the stiffness in his muscles in favor of peering out the truck window. There are only a couple of walkers stumbling around out there now. He's able to count seven, which is much less than what had been there before. Briefly, he wonders if maybe he should just deal with it now. Or should he wait until there's only one or two left?

In the end, his restlessness ends up getting the best of him, and, grabbing his knife, he lets the truck door swing open, making sure to do it as quietly as possible as to not catch any of the walker's attention. He slips out of the truck, his bare feet touching the hot pavement -- he holds back a hiss of pain and slowly begins to creep toward the first walker. It's taller than him, so he kicks one of its legs, sending it crashing to the ground. 

He doesn't waste a second in swinging his knife down, burying it into the walker's skull with a disgusting squelch. He pulls it out right as a snarl sounds from somewhere nearby. The other walkers had noticed him then. He turns, bringing down a walker that had started creeping up behind him and quickly taking out two others with a surprising amount of ease.

Only four left.

He leads them around the truck, letting them tumble and trip as they fought to chase after him. He kicks the knees of another walker, swinging his knife down into its head. He wrenches it out before doing the same with another nearby walker, but this one must have been more recently turned, as his knife gets stuck in its head. The remaining two let out low snarls, and one of them reaches out for his arm. He panics but manages to get his head back in the game in time to kick the walker away with as much strength that he can muster. The walker is sent tumbling into the other one, and they both fall to the ground. 

The two walkers hiss and snarl, slowly beginning to rise to their feet, and he uses that time to wrench his knife out of the dead walker's skull. Blood splatters onto his hands, but he pays it no mind as he rushes forward, kicking the two walkers back down and stabbing the both of them in the eye sockets before they're able to get back up again. They go limp, and he stares down at them, chest heaving. 

He lets himself lean against the truck, hunching over and placing his hands on his knees as he gasped for breath. After a moment, he examines his arm where one of the walkers had grabbed him, holding it in front of his eye so he can check it for any kind of injuries. The skin looks a little red there, but the walker hadn't managed to break any skin, so he breathes a small sigh of relief, wiping his sweaty and bloody palms onto his pants. He straightens up right after, peering down at the dead walkers at his feet before circling back around to the open truck door. 

He climbs inside, grabbing the plastic bag filled with supplies and swinging it over his shoulder. He should probably find some other bag to put his things in, but he'll take a plastic one over having to haul those boxes around. Suddenly, he's reminded of the burning pain in his feet, and he looks down at them, lifting one of them up to get a peek. He cringes at what he sees. It isn't pretty.

A wave of nausea sweeps over him like a hurricane when he studies the horrible state of his feet. While he had already known that running, or walking, through the forest and road when barefoot would no doubt be bad for his feet, he hadn't realized just how bad the damage would have been up until now. Countless blisters are covering the bottom of his feet, and blood is oozing from various cuts and scabs he must have gotten during his trek through the forest. The brunet swallows, feeling queasy. Honestly, it's a miracle he hadn't noticed any of this sooner. This could end up being bad -- very, very bad. 

* * *

He had crawled back into the truck soon after finally noticing the many injuries covering his feet, putting the plastic bag down and pulling out the first aid kit. He opens it, taking out the bandages and tweezers. He pulls out any remaining rocks or splinter that had gotten wedged into his skin, cringing with pain each time. When he's sure that he had managed to get all of them, he starts wrapping up and bandaging his feet to the best of his ability. It ends up being much less stressful than wrapping his face had been -- probably since he can actually see his feet -- so it only takes a few minutes compared to forty. 

He still doesn't have any shoes, but he can deal with that later. Hopefully before he mangles up his feet even more than he already had. 

Either way, he doesn't want to stick around here any longer. Who knows what else may lurk in these woods. Something in his chest gives a small twinge, and he finds himself understanding that the walkers aren't the only dangers around here -- people are just as, or even more, dangerous than the walkers are.

He doesn't know why he knows this. But he knows that it's true. People cannot be trusted without reason. They're dangerous. Hell, for all he knew, other people might have been the reason for his lack of memory. 

The thing is, with walkers, you know what they want -- you know that they're slow and dumb and can't do shit to anyone as long as one doesn't let the dead get their hands on them. They're more dangerous in larger numbers, but you still know just what to expect from them. They want to eat any living thing that they can. They're predictable. But with the living... they have thoughts, they have ideas and personalities and ulterior motives and are altogether quite unpredictable. People can be greedy, selfish, and cruel -- they can do so much more than just kill and maim. Some might be good, but most of them aren't around for long.

They never are.

Uncomfortable with where his current train of thought is currently going, the brunet forces his body to stand, letting out a low hiss of pain when the blisters and cuts on his feet start to sting. He starts walking -- well, limping -- down the road at the fastest pace he can manage, keeping a hand on the loaded gun he had found just in case something -- or someone -- decides to pop out at him.

_Just keep moving,_ he tells himself, trying to ignore the pounding ache in his body as he moved. His body still hurts from when he had first woken up washed up in the sand, and while it isn't nearly as bad as the stinging in his feet or the throbbing on the right side of his face, it still hurts like a bitch and makes him want to curl up and cry. _Keep moving -- you can rest later._

He makes sure to walk in the middle of the road, making sure that if a walker did end up appearing from either side of the road, he would see it long before it reached him. While he doesn't like being so out in the open, he can't risk going into the forest either. With the current state of his feet, doing that would be like asking to get an infection. 

Or like asking to get ambushed -- because he knows that he isn't in good shape at the moment. His body is battered and bruised, he's more likely than not missing an eye, and his feet are literally mangled to shit, so going into the woods where anything can pop out of nowhere, attack, and overpower him isn't a good idea at all. 

His tongue darts out from his mouth, wetting his lips. He hefts up the plastic bag slightly, giving a nervous glance towards the trees on either side of him as he moves.

He wonders where he even is anymore. 

Clearly not anywhere near his home -- wherever home even is. When he thinks of home, he thinks of someplace warm and safe, surrounded by all of his loved ones -- but the brunet can't even remember who his loved ones even are, and he can't remember ever feeling warm or safe. He can't remember anything, but one of the most striking of things is that he can't even remember where he had been from before all this.

The image of a map appears in his head -- of the United States. Okay, he knows that he's from the U.S, but he can't remember which state. Let alone a town in it -- he strains his mind, but even then, he can't come up with shit.

He can't come up with anything, not even his own name.

* * *

He ends up resting in another abandoned car on the road late that day. It's smaller than the truck had been, obviously, and there's not all that much in it: a couple empty water bottles, more cigarettes, and a crumpled piece of paper that holds nothing but more unintelligible scribbles.

As he takes his break, he realizes that he's starting to remember things -- not any memories, but instead facts. He can remember what year the world went to shit, he can remember that walkers only go down from damage to the brain, can remember that being bitten is a death sentence, and he remembers all sorts of different math equations. He remembers who the United State's first president is, remembers how to shoot a gun, and he knows things too. He knows what school is, what a job is -- he can recognize everyday objects without even thinking about it, but through it all, he can't remember anything about himself.

He can't remember why he lost his memory in the first place.

He can't remember his birthday, how old he is, or who his parents are. 

He can't remember having friends, can't remember going to school, can't remember ever having a home.

He can't even remember who he is.

* * *

It scares him.

Not knowing anything about himself.

It just... scares him.

The brunet doesn't know anything about himself -- was he a nice person? What were his hobbies? What was his favorite animal -- his favorite color! He hadn't really thought about it much when he had first awoken. Not even when he had been back in that truck. But now, as the brunet sits there in that car, he finds himself alone with his whirling thoughts with nothing to do -- and he can't stop thinking about it.

But why did he even care about this?

It doesn't even matter.

Whoever he was, whoever he had been before losing his memory -- that person was long gone. Completely erased as if he were nothing more than an unneeded scribble on a piece of paper. All that should matter to him was finding some kind of shelter, finding some shoes for his feet, and making sure he doesn't die from a stupid infection.

So he pulls himself to his feet, grabbing the plastic bag filled with his supplies, and gets back up, ignoring the burn in his feet as he starts to walk again. 

Where -- he doesn't know. He has no real destination in mind as he travels. He just needs to keep on moving, or else the dead would catch up to him.

He tries to keep his thoughts from wandering much. He tries to keep them focused on what he should do next, but despite his best efforts, he finds his mind going back to his previous train of thought.

How old had he been when the world first ended? Had he been with a group? The brunet knows that he's still a child -- or a teenager -- and he knows that children don't adapt well to change on their own, nor do they survive long all alone, so he must have had a group at one point.

He can't help but wonder what had happened to them. Did they all die? Or did he just get separated from them?

He heaves a small sigh, tucking a strand of still sandy hair behind his ear and swallowing down the lump forming in his throat. 

He stares down at his feet, mind whirling with thoughts and ideas. In the end, it doesn't really matter what had happened to his group -- if he ever had one. They probably thought he was dead or something, or maybe they had just left him behind. 

It's a grim thought, but it's definitely a possibility.

* * *

He spends the next few days just walking -- no destination in mind as he does so.

Just walking.

He had ended up taking the shoes from a dead walker on the side of the road -- they look like combat boots or something, and they're a bit big for him, but it feels so much better than walking around on the hot pavement while barefoot. It helps the pain in his feet, too.

He mostly sticks to the road, only straying to the forest occasionally to hide from the blazing sun. He rations his food and water carefully, wanting them to last for as long as they possibly can. He scavenges from abandoned cars on the road, taking whatever is left inside -- which usually isn't much -- and adding it to his supplies. 

He finds a backpack in one of the cars. He puts all of his supplies in there instead and leaves the plastic bag. It had started to break, anyway. The backpack is much easier to carry, too. 

Before he knows it, a week passes by since he'd woken up without memory. And then another. And another. Until a full month passes by. The brunet doesn't really have any idea why he even keeps track of the days, but he does, and in all honesty, he doesn't want to stop. It just feels... important. Almost as if he doesn't want to forget anything else. He doesn't really know if that's it or not, or if keeping track of the days is simply another hidden instinct of his, but he continues doing it.

So he walks and walks and walks and walks -- he walks until his feet are sore and he has to rest, he walks until his throat is parched and he needs a drink. He walks until he can't walk any longer because he doesn't know what else to do.

All he knows is that he wants to stay alive, and that's what he is going to do.


	3. I know I’ll change my form, I’ll grow a varied skin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> .  
> .  
> .  
> .  
> Please don't hurt me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I both hated and loved writing this chapter.  
> Like, the first part was fun. But the second part...
> 
> I'm sorry. I put Carl through so much shit in my stories. The poor boy really doesn't deserve it. 
> 
> WARNING: I know I already put this in the tags, but this chapter contains abuse, thoughts of self-harm, thoughts of suicide, and... well, rape... Please feel free to skip any of this if you don't feel comfortable with it. 
> 
> I think this is all I wanted to say for this chapter. Comments are always appreciated, so please tell me what you think! And to the people reading this that are also a part of the U.S, please stay safe. It's really crazy right now.
> 
> Otherwise, enjoy the chapter!

Keep moving.

That's all he needs to do.

Just keep moving.

Put one foot in front of the other. 

Keep moving.

Two months had passed since he had woken up confused, injured, and alone on that shore, and the air had begun to get colder and colder as the days go on. No matter where he goes, it's always cold. The cold bites at his skin, trickles down his spine -- engulfing him in a chilly blanket that never seems to leave.

_ Keep going. _

A part of him wonders which season it is -- probably winter or fall if he had to make a guess. He might be wrong (and he probably is,) but either way, it would be wise to try and find some winter clothes just in case things get really, really bad. 

But he's also in the middle of nowhere; he has no idea where to find clothes like that. Whenever he tries thinking about it, all that comes to mind is the word ' _ mall'  _ along with the image of a large building with hundreds of stores in it. So he knows what a mall is, but he has no idea where to find one. Or if he wants to find one.

Malls used to be crowded; that's what his mind is telling him. That means they have to have a lot of walkers. If he gets trapped there trying to get clothes of all things...

It isn't worth it. 

Clothes aren't hard to find, anyway -- he'll just steal them off a walker or something. There's no need to risk his life. 

_ Keep moving.  _

_ Don't stop. _

_ Don't rest. _

_ Just keep moving. _

He finds an abandoned camp one day. There are three dead bodies in it: a man, a woman, and a baby that couldn't have been even a week old at the time of their death. The sight of the baby causes an ache to form in his chest, but he ignores it as he raids the camp, taking with him the things he might eventually need. A jacket that is much too big for him, a bag filled with food (some of it is stale, but he takes it anyway), some matches, a few knives, and a large rope -- he is just about to leave when something in the corner of his eye catches his attention. 

It's a teddy bear.

He stares at it for a long few seconds, uncertainty bubbling in his chest. 

He doesn't know why, but he picks it up, brushing the dirt off of it so he can get a better look. 

Another image of the chubby-cheeked little girl from before swims into mind, but this time, he sees her laughing. He sees a glimpse of her biting the ear of a teddy bear a lot like this one, and he hears her giggling up a storm. 

He stares at the bear in his hand for another few seconds.

He puts it in his bag and keeps walking. 

* * *

A pair of kind blue eyes and a deep voice is the first real thing of his old life that he remembers.

The first and last thing, really. The brunet doesn't really recall much besides that. It's super weird, hard to explain because one day he doesn't remember shit, and the next, he gets a vague and blurry image of a face without any kind of warning. But he can't make out many details -- it's like he's viewing it from underwater. The only thing he can really see is the blue eyes, eerily similar to his own. Maybe a relative of his. Maybe not.

He doesn't know.

He hears a voice next. 

Well, he doesn't actually hear it. It's more like he remembers hearing it. It's at night when he first remembers it. He's all alone, trying to fall asleep in yet another abandoned car he had taken shelter in, when he recalls a voice -- a man's voice -- filled with kindness and amusement at one moment and then filled with anger and annoyance at another. 

He realizes that the voice probably belongs to the face he had seen. But when he strains his mind, trying to remember anything else, all it does is give him a nasty headache. 

Later, the brunet holds the teddy bear he had found close to his chest, and he cries for the family he doesn't even remember having. 

* * *

When he runs out of food, he starts eating what the wildlife provides: worms, spiders, other bugs, berries, leaves, and even the sticks that had fallen on the ground. He finds water in creeks, rivers, and streams, and he boils the water using the matches he had scavenged.

It isn't perfect, but he manages.

He kills a mouse one day. It's a small thing, hardly any meat on its bones, but he eats it anyway. 

_ (He starts losing track of the days.) _

One day, he finds a baby rabbit curled up all alone in the tall grass. He slits its throat with his knife, trying to ignore the stabbing pain in his chest, and cooks it on a fire. Again, it hardly has any meat on its bones, but it's better than nothing. 

Anything is better than nothing.

* * *

He wants to remember.

Well, maybe that's not the best way to put it.

He wants to know who he is -- or who he was. He wants to remember his life before the world went to shit. He wants to remember the feelings of love and joy and warmth -- wants to remember his name and age. He wants to know what happened to him, his sister, and the rest of his family. He wants to know what his life had been like before he lost his memory. He wants to know so many things. He wants to remember. 

But at the same time, a part of him doesn't want to remember. He's terrified of it, really. Because what if the truth is something he won't be able to handle? What if there is something in his memories better off forgotten? He's terrified of knowing the truth, of being disappointed by what it may or may not hold. He wants to know what happened to him and his family, to his group -- but another part of him is terrified of it.

(Does that make him crazy?)

(He doesn't know. He doesn't want to know. He doesn't care if it makes him appear crazy or not.)

Whenever he tries to think about what happened to make him lose his memory, he hears the giggling of a baby. He hears the sound of gunshots and screaming, and then a bolt of pain that shoots through his brain, and then he remembers falling. Everything is empty for a long time after that -- and wet. He recalls being unable to breathe for a while -- recalls cold and icy water surrounding him. 

Darkness is what he sees for a while.

He doesn't know what any of it means. He just keeps moving. Keeps getting brief flashes of his life, only for them to disappear before he gets the chance to find out what they mean. Keeps surviving by the skin of his teeth, staying far away from walkers or any kind of civilization. But it gets harder and harder as the days get colder and colder. The brunet lights fires every night when he rests, but it takes so much effort to keep them going throughout the night that he's always exhausted no matter what he does. Any shelters he tries and creates never hold together well, and he never stays in one place for too long. He doesn't trust the world to keep him safe. Only he can do that now. 

It doesn't make things any simpler these days.

Nothing does.

* * *

He remembers glimpses of people. Hears their voices. Though he never can remember much. He remembers their appearances even less. They're blurry most times, rarely ever getting clearer. And while he can recall a few names, he still can't remember the ones that belong to his sister or that man with the blue eyes. Those ones keep escaping him. But then again, memories are tricky things. And seeing as he can't even remember his own name, that makes it even more so. 

Every night, he mouths those names into the flickering flames of his fire to ensure he doesn't forget them again. He holds his hands out to the warmth, breathing slowly in the silence, and he repeats those names in his mind continuously -- like a song playing on repeat.  _ Sophia. Shane. Michonne. Maggie. Glenn. Dale. Hershel. _ The blonde girl who liked to sing and the man on the motorcycle -- he still can't remember those ones.  _ Tyreese. Sasha.  _ The awkward dark-haired girl who kept fist-bumping people. The large redhead with a booming voice and a pretty woman with a hat. The quiet priest and the guy with the weird-ass mullet. 

(The name of his sister is always on the tip of his tongue. It's like a whisper lingering at the back of his mind, never all that discernable, but never actually leaving. And then there's the man with the deep voice and blue eyes. That name is pushed far into the back of his mind.)

He stares blankly at the fire, still mouthing the names.

The flames are slowly dying down -- he should probably go find a few sticks or some shit. 

But he doesn't get up. Even as the flames die down to the occasional flicker, he doesn't move an inch. All that he has on his mind is the people he keeps forgetting. The ones whose images get blurrier and blurrier as the days go on. He can hardly hear the giggling little baby anymore, and the only thing he recalls of the man is his voice and his eyes -- but even those are getting murky. 

Is this how things are going to be now?

Him remembering things only to forget them again in a matter of days?

He doesn't want that.

He doesn't understand -- doesn't get why.

Maybe whatever caused his missing eye had damaged more than he thought.

His muscles are cold and stiff. The darkness is both suffocating and empowering. The groans of the walkers echo throughout the forest, never coming from any particular direction. The smoke from the nearly dead fire is burning at his eye, so he closes it, taking in a slow and shaky breath. He somehow manages to gain the energy to get up and gather some firewood to keep the fire going. When he comes back, he thinks,  _ is this my life now?  _ And the worst part is that he doesn't even know. 

He stares at the flames that steadily rise higher and higher. He reaches out a hand, letting the warmth envelop it. The more morbid part of him wonders if he should just throw himself into the fire. It's cold out here, and the fire is warm. And he's tired and alone, and he doesn't think he can stand any of it much longer. But burning to death wouldn't be a quick nor pleasant death. It would be easier to just take out his gun and-

He stares at his hands.

Then, he stares at the fire until he passes out from exhaustion. When he wakes up, he puts whatever remains of the fire out, grabs his things, and keeps moving.

His hand lingers on the gun the entire time. The names he had been mouthing to the fire are erased entirely from his mind. 

* * *

There's a herd of walkers trampling through the forest.

His entire body goes on autopilot as an unknown instinct suddenly rises. He kills a walker, drags its corpse behind a tree, cuts it open, and covers himself in its dark red insides. The blood sticks to his skin, a rotting piece of fat lies on his shoulders, and the smell is sickening. But he walks among the herd nonetheless, totally unafraid. Because why should he be scared? Very little separates him from them now -- a scary thought, but a true one. He doesn't remember anything -- they don't either. He wanders aimlessly -- so do they.

He ends up sticking with that herd for a while.

He breaks away when he realizes they have started heading toward a small town. Civilization is bad. That keeps bouncing around in his head.  _ Badbadbadbad.  _ People. Towns. Cities. All three of those are things he wants to avoid.

So he continues to wander around. Surviving, but just barely. 

He doesn't care anymore.

He doesn't wash the walker's insides off of him. He lets them sit there. The smell is horrible, but he doesn't have the energy to deal with the effort. And it keeps any walkers he runs into from attacking him, so that's a plus. He ends up killing a deer one day -- he found it struggling in a bear trap as two walkers closed in on it. He had killed the walkers and put the deer out of its misery. 

When he cooks it, the meat makes him feel full for the first time in months. 

He saves the rest of the meat. Refills his water when it rains. The rain washes some of the blood off of him, but he doesn't care much. He doesn't care much about a lot these days. He continues walking for a good while after that. Even when his feet start to ache, his eye starts to water, and a burn settles in his lungs, he doesn't stop once. 

He can't.

* * *

It doesn't take much longer for him to reach his breaking point.

* * *

He runs out of water. He runs out of food. His mouth is as dry as a desert, and his stomach twists and turns, begging for something to fill it. He can barely keep his eye open for even a second, and he feels the exhaustion steadily beginning to creep in. His head spins, and the ground seems to sway beneath him. 

He should rest. He knows he should.

But he doesn't.

He keeps moving.

Keeps walking.

Keeps limping.

A little further.

Just... he needs... a little further. Then... then he can rest.

He trips over a tree root and is sent sprawling into the dirt. He tries to push himself back up, but his efforts are futile, and he falls back down mere seconds after his attempt.

He lies in the dirt, his breathing slow as his eye flutters shut.

He just needs... he just needs a few minutes.

Just...

* * *

When he wakes, his hands are tied together with rope.

His head aches, his wrists burn, and when he tries to move, a spike of pain shoots through his neck, and he lets out a faint groan. 

"Well, well, well, look who finally decided to wake up!"

His eye flutters open, and he tenses at the unfamiliar voice. The first voice he's heard since he's woken up. The first voice he's heard in months. 

"About fucking time; was gettin' tired o' waiting."

As his vision slowly begins to clear, an unfamiliar man kneels down in front of him. He has mud-caked blonde hair that looks more black than blonde, and his eyes are a pale blue. There's a grin on the man's face, and the look in the man's eyes sends a shiver of fear racing down his spine. 

That alone makes his breath catch.

He hasn't felt afraid in a long time.

The man's grin turns predatory. 

"Y'know, me and my boys were quite surprised when we found ya passed out in the forest. Though y'were one of them geeks a' first." The man gives a low chuckle. The brunet's attention is drawn to the three other men sitting around a fire of sorts.

He feels his breathing start to quicken.

This can't be good.

"Not gonna say anything, sweetheart?" The man questions, his voice sickly sweet. Practically mocking. "C'mon, don't be shy. Tell us your name."

_ Name. _

He stares at the man.

Then, he opens his mouth to speak, to tell him that he doesn't have a goddamn  _ name. _ But as the seconds go by, not a single word comes out. He closes his mouth again, uncertainty and fear bubbling up inside him. 

Why... what...?

Why... why can't he speak?

He knows that isn't normal. His mind is telling him that he should be able to talk. But when he tries to, no words come out. Instead, he is only able to stare at the man who is clearly awaiting some kind of answer -- an answer that the brunet is unable to (and doesn't want to) give. 

When the man realizes he isn't going to get an answer, the expression on his face changes to something more frightening. "Not much of'a talker, huh?" 

He stays silent.

Not that he has a choice in the matter.

"Y'know, under all that grime, you really aren't all that bad looking," the man purrs, lazily tracing a finger over his cheekbone, "quite pretty, really. That's a hard thing to find. Doesn't that make us lucky?" The man grins again, his finger moving across the brunet's jaw and the edge of the dirtied bandage covering his missing eye. The brunet flinches at the touch, and he spits right in the man's face. 

_ Fuck you, _ he wants to say.

Before he even realizes what's happening, there is a sudden pain in his side. It takes him a moment to realize that he had just been kicked in the stomach.

"I want a fucking answer, you little bitch." The man snarls, any traces of his 'kindness' long gone. "What? Are you retarded or somethin? Fucking talk when you're spoken too." Another kick -- the three men that are surrounding the fire laugh. The brunet remains deathly quiet, glaring up at the first man with as much anger that he can muster.

The man slaps him this time, _ hard.  _

He spits again.

This time it lands in the man's eye.

A sense of satisfaction fills him as the man curses. But that satisfaction is quickly washed away when one of the other men gets up, quickly striding over to forcefully grab him by the hair, lifting his head up in a very painful grip. "Listen here, brat," he hisses, "you're lucky that you're even alive right now. We could'a just left you out there to die, but we didn't, and this is how you fuckin' repay us?" 

Another slap.

Another kick.

He realizes that his vision is beginning to blur mere seconds before he ends up blacking out. Still tied up as the men continue to kick him.

He has no idea how much time passes when he finally comes to again, his head aching and his body pressed against a mattress that certainly hadn't been there before. There's hot, sickly breath mere inches from his neck and a heavy weight pressing against his back. He feels a hand gripping his hip, and when the man realizes he's awake, it moves even lower. 

He starts to struggle, but his own hands are bound, and his efforts are fruitless. 

It doesn't take long for the pain to start.

He screams.

He screams louder and louder until his voice is too hoarse to go on for a moment longer. He thrashes and struggles until he realizes that will only make the pain even worse. 

Laughter echoes around the camp.

He whimpers.

* * *

He doesn't know how much time passes because, after the first day, the men end up blindfolding him, making it impossible to tell whether it was day or night.

He doesn't know any of their names. He doesn't want to. All he knows is pain -- pain in his head, pain in his wrists where the ropes rub against, pain in his neck, pain in his hips where his skin is marred with finger-shaped bruises, and pain in pretty much everywhere else. 

Pain in places he doesn't let his mind stray to.

The men stuff him in a car one day. The drive lasts hours. He can't see where they bring him -- he just knows that it has four walls, a roof, and a door. And the only reason he knows that is from what he had heard the men saying.

Hours would go by like years -- decades, even. The men would have their fun with him separately. They would rarely share. He would only get a few minutes where he isn't being abused in some way. Maybe an hour if he's lucky. Even at night, they don't relent.

They barely feed him -- hardly give him any water. Just enough to keep him alive, but nothing more.

There isn't a moment where his head isn't aching, where his body isn't throbbing from the bruises the men had left on him. There are hardly any clothes on him at this point -- only a pair of boxers and a torn gray shirt. 

The only things he sees are the muffled shapes through the fabric of his blindfold, walking around him -- indistinct and blurred. He can't see them, so instead, he listens to them. The men talk like they forget they even have somebody tied up. And honestly, he wouldn't be surprised if that were the case. But he certainly isn't complaining about that. These men forgetting he exists is honestly  _ so _ much better than what the alternative is. 

He learns that these men are keeping him in an abandoned watchtower -- that there are a shit ton of walkers wandering around below. A herd had passed by a few days ago, and that is the main reason why these men are holed up here. 

The brunet makes sure that, if he ever gets the chance, he will throw himself right over the edge of the tower -- onto the ground to be devoured by walkers who-knows-how far below because honestly, death would be kinder than whatever  _ this  _ is. 

* * *

He smells smoke.

The men are smoking. 

It smells horrible, leaves a sickly feeling in his throat, and he has to stop himself from throwing up all over the floor. He's done that before, and the beating he got for it was not something he wants to repeat anytime soon.

This is one of the few times where the men are leaving him alone. He knows it usually doesn't last longer than an hour, but he's going to take what he can get. Any time where the men are distracted is time that the brunet cherishes. And maybe if he's lucky, he'll get some food.

Or maybe... just maybe... one of them will slip up. The men haven't checked the ropes on his wrists for at least a couple days -- or weeks -- and it's getting looser and looser. Not enough where he is able to worm his hands out of it, but it's getting closer to that. He just has to wait for that time to arrive. Though whether it's going to come in a couple days, hours, weeks, or even months, he doesn't know. Just as long as it happens, then he doesn't care when. He just wants to get the hell out of here. 

The sooner, the better.

All he needs to do is wait. But he isn't sure how much longer he can do that for. Every second he spends in this godforsaken place is another moment of agony, of sickly breath on his skin, of a terrorizing pain in his lower body. It's another moment of helplessness and weakness. He wants it to be over as soon as possible. 

He had never been a patient person.

He yelps as something burning hot is pressed to his face, right under the missing eye that the men had unbandaged at some point in time. Distantly, he hears the men laughing. He realizes that they had just put one of their cigarettes out on him.

He grits his teeth, breathes heavily.

He'll get out of here, sooner or later. 

He just needs to wait.

* * *

Eventually, the walkers around the watchtower finally start to wander away.

The men start going out on runs, usually two at a time, sometimes three. He gets fed a little bit more because of it, but he doesn't have the appetite to eat most of what they give to him -- he usually throws it all up. This results in more beatings, more bruises, more screaming from him, more laughter from the rest of the men.

He hears the sound of a belt buckling.

He sees a blurred shadow approach from behind his blindfold. He already knows what's about to happen.

He's proven right when the man starts to take his clothes off. He hears another one of the men chuckle, and the brunet allows himself to go limp, knowing it would be over quicker if he doesn't fight back.

In seconds, fingers are digging into his hips. 

Fingers are yanking on his hair.

There's a violent pain in the lower half of his body.

He grits his teeth to hold back a scream.

The ropes rub against his wrists -- they start to bleed.

The man shoves his face into the brunet's neck, and he cringes at the alcohol scent that wafts into his nose.

The man holds his hands above his head.

He bites down on his tongue hard enough that it bleeds.

_ Make it stop, oh god, please make it stop. _

He doesn't voice these pleas aloud. He can't. And even if he could, he wouldn't want to give these men the satisfaction.

His skin feels dirty -- dirtier than it ever has before. 

"Feel like heaven, kid." The man whispers into his ear.

It sounds like a compliment.

It shouldn't be.

The man digs his fingers into the brunet's hips even more. 

He closes his eye and prays for it to be over. 


	4. To keep me safe and warm, I’ll be your chameleon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so after this chapter. Things should be picking up a bit more. Which means Negan and the rest of the Saviors.

The days melt into weeks. The weeks melt into a month. The month melts into two, then three.

They all pass the same way. 

A pair of dirty hands digging into the skin of his hips.

Long and ragged nails digging into his thighs.

Sometimes hot, sickly breath on his face and neck. 

Constant pulling at his hair.

Pain.

Always pain.

There would never be a moment where there isn't pain.

His hands remaining bound.

Waking up to pain every single day. To searing, blistering pain that he is never able to escape.

Being slammed into walls. 

Being slammed into the floor.

Being used like he was some kind of _ toy.  _

He soon regrets not shooting himself when he had the chance. Regrets not throwing himself into that fire. He regrets ever waking up on that beach.

He regrets living.

* * *

There's a knife on his arm.

"You look so pretty when you bleed," a hoarse voice whispers.

The man runs the tip of the knife down his arm before moving to his chest. The blade is dragged down his legs, down his feet and ankles. He can feel droplets of blood trickling from his skin, but not a lot. He wishes it were more, wishes it were enough for him to bleed out. 

There's a hand in his hair, forcing him to reveal his neck.

The blade inches toward there, never digging in very deep. And the man giggles as he tries to squirm away.

Then, the man drops the knife.

There are hands on his throat seconds later -- suffocating him.

His vision gets blurry, black dots dancing in the corners of his eye.

He knows the man is only doing this to scare him. They've been doing it a lot more lately. And while it had terrified the hell out of him the first time, he's stopped being scared after the third time. 

A part of him hopes they kill him.

He doesn't care anymore.

He just wants out.

The hands pull away from his throat, his body takes in a gasping breath.

Then there are hands on his hips again. The man buries his face into his neck, and the brunet feels something wet trailing over his jaw -- a tongue... gross. 

There's the sound of a belt buckle opening. He feels the cold zipper pressing itself against the bare skin of his thigh. He squeezes his eye shut, his body tensing as he prepares himself for the inevitable.

It comes moments later.

* * *

One night, the men get drunk.

Not one of them, not two of them, not three of them --  _ all  _ of them are drunk. The brunet doesn't know where the hell they found enough alcohol for all of them to get drunk in the first place, but they did, and honestly, he couldn't care less about where they found it. Them being drunk made them clumsy and stupid. It took their attention away from him for a little while, and a part of him is hoping one of them will end up falling from the tower in their drunken state. Two of them came close to it already, though they don't seem all that perturbed about it. 

They're smoking again too, and he already has five circular burn marks on his neck and chest from where they had put their cigarettes out. The burns barely even sting anymore, and though they still hurt, it's nothing compared to how the rest of his body feels.

He wiggles his hands a bit, the rope rubs against the raw skin, and he winces.

The air reeks with the smell of alcohol, cigarette smoke, and vomit. It's not a decent-smelling combination at all, and it nearly makes the brunet throw up a couple of times. And hell, he probably would have thrown up if there were actually any food in his stomach. But alas, the men haven't fed him for three days. Either they forgot, or they just don't care. He doesn't know. Probably won't ever know.

He doesn't want to, either.

He wouldn't have been able to hold down any food they tried to give him anyway.

No matter the reason, he stays quiet and totally motionless. He leans his head against the wall, remaining eye closed and his breathing shallow. He tries not to wince every time one of the men gets particularly loud or close. The watchtower they're holding him in isn't very big, so he gets stepped on a lot.

Being asleep is so much easier than being awake is. The men don't pay nearly as much attention to him when he appears to be sleeping. That doesn't really stop them from waking him up to use him some more when they're bored or horny, but the chances of them doing that aren't all that high. From what information he's been able to gather, they seem to prefer tormenting him while he's awake. They like seeing the dread on his face when he realizes what they're about to do. 

The burns on his skin itch worse than bug bites do -- he wonders if that's normal. He wishes that he were able to reach up and scratch at them. While he doubts it would do much in the long run, at least it would relieve the itching for at least a little bit. 

He flexes his wrists again. He's able to move them a little farther before the rope stops him.

So far, so good.

He flinches as the shattering of a wine bottle registers in his mind. Broken bits of glass fall down on him from above -- one of the men must have thrown it at the wall. They laugh, and he tries not to wince as bits of glass get stuck in his hair and shirt. 

He moves his hands again -- his fingers come into contact with one of the glass pieces that had fallen.

His breath catches.

Could he...?

His fingers close around the shard of glass, still somewhat damp from the wine the men had drained from it, and he makes sure to keep his breathing even and his body still as he slowly maneuvers the glass around until its tip is pressing against the rope. 

One of the men lets out a booming laugh, and he drops the shard of glass in his surprise. He holds his breath, praying that none of the men heard the glass fall. When he's sure that all of them are still too preoccupied with the alcohol to have heard anything, he wiggles his hands down a tad, fingers curling around the shard once more. 

Hope swirls in his chest.

Slowly, ever so slowly, he presses the tip of the shard to the rope once again. He bites the inside of his mouth hard enough to bleed, trying to concentrate on moving the piece of glass back and forth to cut through his restraints. It's tedious work, especially with how little room he has for his hand to move around, but he can feel the rope getting looser and looser, so he knows that it's working. As long as nobody notices what he's doing, then he should be free by the time the sun rises, maybe even sooner if he's lucky.

He keeps stopping every time one of the men gets particularly loud, fearing that maybe one of them had realized what he was doing, but each time, his fears prove false. Still, he has to be careful. If they see what he's doing...

It's not going to end well for him, that's for sure.

He focuses most of his attention on the rope, or more specifically, the glass shard. He just needs to keep moving it back and forth... back and forth. God, why did the men have to use such thick rope to tie his hands up?

Most ropes are definitely not this hard to cut through.

At least they didn't use chains or handcuffs -- then the chances of him getting out of here would be close to none. He knows that the men have some kind of chains -- he's heard the rattling -- but they never used it on him for some odd reason. He doesn't really know why, and he doesn't care. Not tying him up with that chain would be their mistake, and he is planning to make the most of it.

_ Back and forth... _

_ Back and forth... _

He wiggles his hands a little bit.

_ Don't let them see you... _

He feels the rope loosen.

He fights back a grin.

_ Back and forth... _

_ Back and forth... _

As the hours wear on, the rope gets looser and looser, but it hasn't yet broken. 

The brunet tries not to feel irritated at this, but he can't help it -- what the hell is this thing made out of? Still, he doesn't let any of this show. He keeps his body limp and his head leaning against the wall, he lets his eye slip open from behind the blindfold. As expected, the only thing he is able to see are shadowy figures. While he can't really tell what they are doing, he can easily discern how close they are to him. 

The closest shadow is a few feet away. The man is sprawled out on the floor, and the brunet can only assume that's where the snoring is coming from. 

He turns his attention to the next shadow.

It's a little blurrier than the last, so that means this one is further away -- he can't really tell what position the man is in, but that doesn't matter. He just prays that this one will follow in suit of the other man and pass out. In fact, he hopes that all of them end up passing out.

It would certainly make things a whole lot easier.

Carefully, he starts wiggling his hands around. He holds back a smirk of satisfaction when he finds that his restraints are looser than they had been the last time he checked. Slowly, he moves a finger to where he had been cutting at the ropes. It's not as deep as he would like it to be, but it's progress nonetheless. He returns to sawing at the rope, trying not to wince every time the shard rubs against the bruises and abrasions left behind by the restraints. 

He knows that some of the abrasions had started bleeding over the past few weeks. He had felt the blood trickling down his hand whenever a new one appeared. Most of them had dried at this point, though some of them are still oozing with blood. They aren't the worst injury he's had, though. So he mostly ignores them.

It's nothing compared to how the rest of him hurts.

_ Back and forth... _

_ Back and forth... _

He hears the tell-tale thud of a body hitting the ground. Seconds later, there's a loud snore. 

He breathes a faint sigh of relief. Good. Another man had passed out from the alcohol. And judging by how loud he is snoring, he isn't going to be waking up anytime soon.

Just two more to go... hopefully, he won't have to wait too long. 

Thankfully, luck seems to be on his side for once. He hears one of the men getting up, stumbling as he does so. "Gonna go take a piss," the man slurs, and the brunet holds his breath as the man walks by him, opening the door to the watchtower. It swings shut on its own. 

The remaining man hardly gives the other one a response. Only grunting. The brunet holds his breath, moving the shard even faster against the ropes. 

After what feels like an eternity, there's a low, inaudible snap. 

The ropes around his hands loosens.

The swirl of hope in his chest grows. 

He continues cutting.

Another snap.

The rope loosens more. 

The remaining man starts to snore. 

He wiggles his hands. He's finally able to squeeze his hands out of the restraints. 

_ Yes! _

He doesn't waste a second in ripping his blindfold off. He blinks furiously as his vision adjusts to finally being able to see again, and he climbs to his feet, nearly falling when his legs suddenly fill with weird pins and needle sensations. His mind is telling him that this is normal, and he has no reason to doubt it. So he takes a shaky step forward, peering around the room. The room itself is medium-sized, and three of the men are passed out, as expected. His gaze immediately drifts to the blonde man -- the one who had first talked to him when he woke up. There's a wine bottle still clasped in his hand, and drool is dribbling down his jaw. 

Hate fills his body.

Still, he makes his way toward one of the bags in the corners, glancing to the doorway where the last man had disappeared. Quickly, he goes through it, pulling out a pair of jeans that look much too big for him. The thought of wearing the clothes these men had worn sickens him, but he isn't about to escape with only a shirt and some boxers on. So he pulls them on quickly, biting back a gasp at the sharp stab of pain he feels at every movement, and he feels the queasy feeling in his stomach grow when his eye lands on the hundreds upon hundreds of finger-shaped bruises marring his skin. 

They're worse than he thought they'd be.

Once he had the pants on, he finds his backpack that had been thrown into another corner, going through it and taking out a large machete that certainly doesn't belong to him. It's stained with blood -- walker blood most likely. Maybe even human blood. He doesn't care about what it may or may not be. He just zips the backpack up and swings it over his shoulders as quietly as possible.

He glances toward the door again. The man still hadn't returned from taking his piss.

The brunet takes in a shaky breath -- he should leave right now, should get the hell out of here before the man comes back. That is what his gut is telling him to do. And it's the smart thing to do as well. Disappear into the night and pray that the men won't try and follow him. 

But he doesn't want to do that.

He wants these men to pay.

He wants them to  _ suffer  _ for what they did to him. For what they most likely did to so many others. 

If he leaves them here, alive, they might try and follow him. They might find him, might even succeed. They would chain him up again or just kill him. And even if they don't do that, what's stopping them from going out and finding some other person to torment -- what's stopping them from doing the same thing they did to him to someone else?

Nothing is.

And though this world hasn't been the least bit kind to him, the brunet doesn't want anyone else to go through what he had just because he chose to run away instead of killing them. 

The brunet is exhausted, hurt, and  _ angry --  _ he wants nothing more than to curl up into a ball and cry his heart out, but the urge to make these men pay is so much stronger than that. 

So, machete in hand, he stalks toward the nearest man.

Killing him is surprisingly simple. He just raises his arm and swings down --  _ hard.  _ There's a loud crack, and blood splatters all over him. But he doesn't care. Instead, he rips the machete out, watching blankly as the man's body slumps over on the floor.

He kills the second man in the same manner. Then the third.

He looks up toward the door, his eye narrowing.

Three down. One more to go. 

Slowly, he creeps toward the door.

He opens it carefully, hardly breathing as he takes a look around. They really are in an abandoned watchtower. He closes the door quietly, slowly creeping around the sides of the tower, eyeing the railing for a split second before his attention gets pulled away by the sound of breathing nearby. 

His breath catches.

He peers around the side of the wall, his eye immediately landing on the man leaning on the railing, eyes closed, and his body hunched over. The man's back is facing him, and slowly, ever so slowly, he creeps closer, raising his machete up. 

Just a little bit closer...

He takes another step, and then another. A cold gust of wind rushes by, and he has to hold back a shiver. He raises the machete higher up, prepared to swing down, and-

The man whips around suddenly.

_ Shit.  _

"What the-"

The brunet doesn't think about it -- he doesn't hesitate. 

He brings the machete down -- right into the man's skull, showering the brunet in more blood. 

There's a crack. 

The man's body goes limp.

He yanks his machete out and takes in a shaky breath.

He stares at the man's corpse for a few long moments, and it takes him another moment to realize that he's shaking, though whether it's from the cold or something else, he doesn't know.

He heads back inside, ignoring the three other corpses and goes straight to the bags in the corner. He goes through the men's stuff, taking their water and food and weapons and trying to stop his hands from shaking as he grabs their things and shoves them into his own backpack. 

It's dark out.

It's dangerous in the dark.

But the brunet doesn't want to stay here for a moment longer.

He can't.

* * *

He leaves the watchtower.

The moment his feet touch the ground, he starts walking. His legs still shake beneath him, he's exhausted, and his body aches, but he walks anyway. He has to. So he walks as fast as he can -- dizzy, tired, hurt, and desperate to put as much distance between him and that watchtower as possible. 

The only time he stops is to drink some water and have a granola bar. He ends up throwing the granola bar up a few minutes after finishing it. He should be more worried about that, probably. But he simply stares at the foul-smelling pile of vomit for a few long seconds before grabbing his things and getting the hell out of there.

Hours passed, and he keeps walking. The sun is starting to rise in the distance, but the world remains mostly dark. His face goes numb after the first hour, then his fingers, then his toes, and he knows he needs to find some kind of shelter soon. 

The groaning of a walker pulls his attention back to the land of the living. There are two walkers slowly making their way towards him, teeth clicking together and low snarls escaping their rotted lips. He doesn't feel himself throwing a knife at the first one, doesn't feel himself picking up a rock from the ground.

He lunges forward, striking the walker right in the head. The walker is sent reeling, but he hadn't hit it hard enough to kill it. So he hits it again. And again.

And again.

And again.

Blood sprays all over his face.

He keeps hitting it.

When he finally comes back to his senses, the walker's head isn't even there. He had beat the walker's head until there was nothing left but rotting flesh.

He gets up.

Drops the rock.

He keeps moving. Keeps walking. A day passes, and he keeps walking. It gets dark, and he keeps walking.

No food.

No rest.

No water.

No stopping.

All he knows is that he needs to get as far away as possible. He has no idea where he is, and he doesn't care. He just keeps walking. Keeps putting one foot in front of the other. 

Eventually, another walker appears. It doesn't seem to realize that he isn't dead. It just snarls and groans but stumbles alongside him as if he's just another walker in this vast world.

Honestly, he definitely feels like one.

He turns around and buries a knife in its skull.

He keeps walking. 

* * *

The night passes, the sun rises. The sky is bright blue without a single cloud covering it. And somehow, he is still alive. He doesn't know how or why, but he is.

He eats another granola bar -- it tastes like ashes in his mouth. He manages to keep it down this time, but barely. He drinks some water and keeps walking, taking care to stay far away from any roads he accidentally comes upon.

His head hurts, his arms and legs hurt, his entire body hurts -- but his lower half is by far the worst. 

He can't keep going on like this.

He sinks down to his knees, staring down at his bloodstained hands. He stays like that for what feels like an eternity before slowly curling up into a ball. He rests his forehead against his knees, tries not to cry even if the one thing he wants to do is burst into tears.

He wants-

He wants to cry.

He wants to sleep.

He wants everything to stop  _ hurting.  _

He wants to go home.

Home. 

He can't even remember  _ having _ a home.

Home...

Having a home must be nice -- he must've had a one once. 

Right..?

He tries to remember.

He can't.

* * *

The first few nights are agony.

He hardly sleeps. Hardly eats or drinks. 

Every time he tries to eat, he usually throws it up. Whenever he sleeps, he always is woken from nightmares of his time with those men. Of their mocking chuckles and the way their nails dug into his skin. 

He'd lay curled up most nights, trying not to cry as the memories of what happened assaulted him continuously. He prays for some kind of distraction from those memories, but the only happy thing he can think of is his little sister's smiling face. And even that's getting fainter. He can't even hear the sound of her giggling anymore. Every time he tries to remember, his mind always ends up wandering to the way those men would laugh whenever they-

Whenever they-

Whenever-

So he keeps surviving by the skin of his teeth. He drinks water from streams he finds once he runs out. He eats bugs and other wildlife when he runs out of food. He keeps throwing most of it up.

He can see his ribs now.

He had been able to see them before, but they're much more visible now. 

He feels so vulnerable like this -- scurrying around in the forest, barely surviving. He jumps at every little noise, flinches when his body brushes against something unknown. He keeps staring down at the hands still stained with red. The blood had dried now. 

He doesn't dare look at the bruises that had been left behind. He can feel them, but he refuses to look at them. He doesn't think he can. Every time he even lets his mind wander to the bruises, he can feel the men's hands on him once more -- nails digging into his hips, hands pulling at his hair, sickly breathing on his neck, low moans in his ears as the men finish up with him-

It makes him feel pathetic. Weak. Used.

More than once, he considers just pulling out his knife and slitting his throat. Just so he doesn't have to suffer this paranoia -- this nightmare -- any longer. He considers pulling out his gun and shooting himself in the head, considers taking out his matches and lighting himself on fire. 

He gets close to doing it quite often.

He sometimes finds himself pressing the cool metal of his gun right to his head, his fingers just inches away from the trigger. He tries to convince himself to just press down, but every single time, he can't do it.

Eventually, he decides that if he's going to die, then it's not going to be because he can't handle the memories his time with the men bring to him. He isn't going to be putting a bullet in his head. That would be like letting them win. 

When he thinks about it like that, it makes dying seem so much more repulsive.

His mind tells him that fearing death is a good thing. 


	5. I change my mind to make you happy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I really need to give Carl a break, the poor kid goes through so much in my stories...
> 
> Anyways, enjoy the chapter!

He stares at the ground as he walks.

He had long since forgotten how many days had passed since he'd killed and escaped from his captors. He knows it's been more than a week, at least. But he doesn't know the exact number. Nor does he really care at all. All he knows is that his feet hurt, and the sun is killing him. The day had started off pretty warm, but now it is straight up _boiling._ He's around ninety-nine percent sure that he has at least two or three sunburns already forming: one on his neck, one on his arms, and one on his back. 

It sucks.

Like, a lot. 

He is pretty sure that it isn't even supposed to be this hot, too. But he has no way of proving that.

The brunet heaves a small sigh, absentmindedly scratching at one of the scabs on his neck and wincing when he accidentally presses down on one of the bruises that his captors had left behind. He pulls his hand away from the bruised skin immediately, instead wiping his sweaty palm on his pants. He had thankfully gotten a new pair, and by that, he means he stole them off a walker.

The pants aren't exactly comfortable -- they are still much too big for him and reek of rot, but he prefers this pair so much more than the other one. Mainly because the other pants he had worn belonged to one of his captors, which means he had taken great pleasure in burning them in a fire a couple days after escaping.

He peers up at the sky, squinting as the sun's bright rays shine down upon him through the treetops. He wishes he had a hat or something. Anything that would shadow him a bit would be nice. He makes a quick mental note to grab a hat when he sees one. Now that he thinks about it, a pair of sunglasses might be nice too.

Not that he would know where to find a hat or sunglasses. He'd probably just steal them off a walker or something -- he isn't in the mood to head into a town or anything like that to find some. 

So, with no particular destination in mind, he just walks. Just listens to the sound of his footsteps as he picks his way through the forest. 

He had forgotten how nice it feels to be free. 

* * *

Despite his insistence to stay far, far away from any civilization, he somehow stumbles upon an old house in the middle of nowhere. As he takes a look around, he realizes it's more of a farm than it is a house, which explains why it's so far from the nearest town. 

He decides to approach the farm, hoping to find some supplies seeing as he's running low. He knocks on the door as soon as he reaches it, which confuses him a lot. Because the chances of anyone being inside is close to none. Also, who even does that anymore? Nobody wants to alert others of their location. So knocking on a door is stupid. 

But he soon realizes that knocking must be another hidden instinct of his -- one that might have saved his life. For, not even ten seconds after his first knock, walkers start pounding on the other side of the door. He jumps back as soon as the first one starts banging its hands against the wood. And then another. After a minute, he counts at least four of them in total. 

Deciding he can take them, he opens the door, slamming it shut as soon as the first walker pokes its head through. He stabs the walker in the head, lets the door open, and closes the door once another walker shoves its head into the gap. He kills that walker and repeats the process until all four of the walkers are dead. Then, he heads inside.

The first floor of the house doesn't have a lot. It has some canned food, two bottles of water (which he dumps into his own water canteens), a packet of cigarettes that he throws out a window, and two bottles of wine that he also throws out a window. The mere sight of the last two makes him feel sick to his stomach.

The second floor doesn't really have a lot either -- still, he finds some clothes that fit him much better than the ones he is wearing. He changes into those clothes as well as a pair of what looked like riding boots of some kind -- he certainly isn't going to be riding a horse anytime soon, but they are much better than the shoes he's wearing right now. They are literally falling apart on his feet, so the shoe change is very much appreciated.

He finds an old nursery on the second floor as well. It doesn't really have anything in it save for a dusty old crib in the corner, but for some reason, the sight of it causes his heart to ache. He approaches the crib, staring down at the dusty sheets inside -- he finds himself wondering about what happened to the baby that once slept in there. As soon as he thinks this, an image of a bloody baby carrier comes to mind. 

He stumbles backward, momentarily taken aback, and starts blinking furiously in an attempt to rid the image from his head. But his attempts are in vain, for even as he starts searching the rest of the house, that image of the bloody baby carrier never fades from his mind. In a matter of minutes, he finds himself wandering back into the nursery. 

He stares at the crib for a few long moments, wonders again about what happened to that baby. He then finds himself wondering about the giggling little girl he barely remembers -- had that bloody baby carrier had something to do with what happened to her? Had she been torn apart by walkers while wailing and screaming for someone to save her? Before he realizes what's happening, his legs are failing beneath him, and he falls to his knees as sobs push their way up his throat, shaking his body as he cries uncontrollably. 

* * *

He sleeps in the nursery that night and leaves the house the next morning. He pushes the thoughts of the bloody baby carrier and his little sister to the very back of his mind, figuring it would be best to just forget about it again. If death is what came for his entire family, he doesn't want to remember the details. 

His stomach twists and churns with hunger as he walks -- he eats a few blueberries he finds in a bush, and while it doesn't sate him completely, it's better than nothing. As long as he doesn't end up passing out again, then he doesn't care about how hungry he is. It makes him wonder about the last time he's been full --had it been back in the truck? Or had it been before that?

He can't remember.

He should honestly stop being so surprised about that.

* * *

The air is cold that night, and the sun dips below the horizon with a surprising amount of speed. The world goes dark in a matter of minutes, and he is left curled up in the branches of a tree, trying his best to keep warm as he ignores the leaves and sticks that are digging into his back. 

It doesn't take long before the world around him fades away completely, turning into something -- no, somewhere -- else entirely. 

He's in a place with vast fields, wooden fences, and a large, red barn placed next to a pretty white house. The area seems oddly familiar to him, and while he can't figure out why exactly it feels that way, it doesn't take long for him to realize the place is a farm. 

He's standing on the wooden porch of the house, staring out at the setting sun as a horse nickers somewhere in the distance -- the air is cold, and he hugs his arms to his chest, just barely managing to bite back a shiver. 

The longer he stands there, the more aware he becomes of a burning pain hidden deep within his body. It feels like someone had set his insides on fire, and when he looks down, he sees blood soaking through a spot on his shirt only a few inches below his ribs. 

Without stopping to think about it, he reaches out a hand and slowly pulls his shirt up. There's a small, red hole on his stomach -- _a bullet wound,_ a voice in his head whispers. Despite the small size of it, the injury is gushing with blood. It soaks into his shirt, dripping down his body and onto the ground, painting the porch red. 

The pain intensifies, more blood flows out, but for some reason, he doesn't move. He can only stand there, totally frozen as his body descends into agony. Tears well up in the corner of his eye, and he takes in a shaky breath as the first one drips down his cheek. He squeezes his eye shut, pressing a hand to the wound in his side, trying not to cringe as blood gushes onto his hand: sticky and wet. 

There's the sound of a door opening, creaking and groaning in a way that speaks of old age, and he somehow manages to force his body to move, turning around to see who had crept up behind him. But there's no one there. He blinks, confused, and rubs his face, accidentally smearing blood onto his skin.

He turns back around before making a vain attempt to jump away, a gasp tearing itself from his throat. 

A walker is standing on the porch now, staring at him with lifeless yellow eyes. It is what used to be a woman. Dirty brown -- nearly black -- hair falls down to her back, and her skin is deathly pale. Her stomach is torn open, but not in the way that a walker would rip someone apart. The line that goes down her abdomen is a little ragged but clearly done by a blade of some kind. As if someone had cut her open and left her to bleed out and die. 

The woman -- no, the walker -- lurches forward, hands outstretched as her teeth click together, a snarl escaping her undead lips. 

Still unable to move, he simply squeezes his eye shut, begging his mind to wake up. 

And when he opens his eye again, he's in an entirely different place, but the sight before him is no less horrifying. A towering gray building with chain fences surrounding it -- people are running around, screaming and crying and trying to escape the walkers that had somehow broken through.

Somewhere nearby, he sees the body of an old man lying on the ground, blood splattered across his face and chest, a deep gash going down his throat, nearly separating the man's head from his body. 

He doesn't know what's happening. Fear and confusion claw their way up his throat, and more tears start to roll down his cheek as the pain in his gut intensifies. 

He blinks again. When he opens his eye, he's standing by a red boxcar, countless corpses surrounding him, limbs separated from their bodies as if they had been hacked off. 

His first sob forces its way from his throat. 

The scene changes again. The brunet is standing in a dark room as an alarm blares somewhere in the distance. A woman is lying before him -- the same woman he had seen at the farm. She has a tight grip on his hand and is whispering something to him, her voice urgent, skin pale and clammy. His gaze drifts down to her stomach; there's a baby bump, but no gash going down her abdomen like before. 

But then he blinks, and then the baby bump is gone, replaced by a long gash oozing with blood, and there's a bullet hole in the middle of her forehead. He is distantly aware of the weight of a gun in his hand. 

Every time he blinks, a different image appears in front of him, every one more horrible than the last. 

The pain in his stomach never leaves; it only worsens, becomes next to unbearable. 

After what feels like years of this, everything goes dark all of a sudden. And, for a moment, the brunet wonders if the horrors that had just been witnessed are finally over. 

Then, he becomes aware of a cloth covering his face. A feeling of horror settles in his gut. 

There's the clinking of a belt buckle, the sound of a zipper being opened, of footsteps walking toward him. Then, there's a hand gripping his hair, forcing him to expose his neck. Hands are on his body, digging into his hips as low moans echo in his ear. 

_Wake up,_ he begs himself, _just wake up!_

The hands disappear. 

"Hello, love," a woman's voice is calling out to him -- sad and sweet. 

The pain in his stomach is gone.

He opens his eye, confused. When he looks around, he realizes he's in a meadow of some kind, sitting in a patch of flowers with the same woman from the farm sitting across from him. The woman, unlike before, is living. She isn't pale or sickly or yet another walker; her stomach isn't torn open, she isn't dead. Instead, she is wearing a shimmering white gown, brown eyes focused on his own, and dark hair falling down her back in waves. 

He takes in a shaky breath, trying to relax. The woman has yet to speak, but the look on her face is one of sadness and worry -- as if she's worried about him.

"Who are you?" He asks after a moment, somehow able to find his voice after nearly a year of silence. She looks vaguely familiar, but he is unable to figure out why.

The woman gives him a sad smile. "I think you know." 

He doesn't, though. He has no idea who this woman is.

But before he can voice this thought, something inside him clicks, and his eye widens. "You're my mother," he breathes, understanding and grief washing over him in one big wave.

"I am," she says, nodding. 

The brunet stares at her for a long moment, uncomprehending. 

Then, his gaze darts around her figure, finally able to note the similarities between them. Same hair color, same eye shape, same head shape... He stares at her, trying to ingrain her face into his mind, not wanting to forget it again. Then, he swallows down the lump that has formed in his throat, unable to stop his hands from shaking.

"Why can't I remember you?" He asks a second or two later, his voice small.

She simply stares at him, her expression sad. Then, she reaches out, taking one trembling hand into her own. "Because the world isn't fair," she says finally.

His lower lip begins to wobble. And he knows his... _mother..._ is right -- the world isn't fair -- but that isn't good enough. Suddenly, he finds himself desperate for an answer that he knows the woman won't be able to give him.

"Will I ever remember?" He asks next, unable to stop his voice from trembling. His tongue darts out to wet his lips, and he finds himself unsure on whether or not he wants her to answer -- if he's ready for something like that.

And she doesn't answer. Instead, she just watches sadly, hair flowing softly in the breeze. 

But that's the thing. The woman can't answer; she's nothing more than an illusion created by his subconscious. A person he had once known hidden deep into the depths of his mind who doesn't know the truth any more than he does. 

"It's time to wake up, love," his mother says gently.

And before he can register what's happening, his eye is snapping open, and he sits up with a gasp, nearly toppling out of the tree.

He can still feel the phantom grasp of his mother's hand holding his own. He tries straining his mind to pull her image back up, and to his horror, he finds that it's already fading away.

* * *

The thing about being on the road, all alone with nothing but his thoughts to keep him company, is that he has nothing to distract himself. He has no one to talk to (if he can even talk anymore), and he has no good memories to think back on. The only things he can remember are the countless months of nothing but walking, and after that, his time with the men; of their leering grins and long nails that dug scratches into his skin -- ones that still have yet to heal. The only decent memory he has isn't even a memory; it's that dream he had with his mother, and even that is getting blurrier as the days go on. 

He can hardly remember her voice anymore.

Her face is already fading from his mind.

He lets his mind wander back to when he had woken up on that beach. How long ago had that been, anyway? He had long since stopped keeping track of days, but if he's doing his math correctly, then it's probably been around a full year now. Maybe less. Both would be reasonable answers. How long had it been since he had escaped from those men anyway?

He knows it couldn't have been that long -- he still has the bruises they left, and most of the scratches have yet to scab over completely. The marks on his wrists open up occasionally, blood oozing out onto his skin. So perhaps a few weeks now? Maybe a month or two? 

He doesn't know why he's even thinking this, though. It doesn't matter how long it's been; it won't change anything. It won't change the fact he had lost his memory, won't change the fact he had lost his eye, won't change the fact he had been taken by those men, and it certainly wouldn't erase what they had done to him. He has a feeling that, no matter how much he wants to forget, he won't be able to rid himself of the terrible memories those men had given him. 

It's kind of sad, really. 

The _one thing_ that he wants to forget would end up being what he won't ever forget -- they would forever be ingrained into his brain while the memories that he does want back would be locked away forever. 

Distantly, his mother's words come back to him.

_The world isn't fair._

He wishes she had been wrong, but he knows she wasn't. Because life isn't fair, and it never will be. If life were fair, then he wouldn't have run into those men -- if life were fair, he'd still have his memory. 

Speaking of memory, he sometimes finds himself wondering if that woman had even been his mother. Or had she just been something his mind cooked up out of desperation to _have_ a mother?

Not that it even matters. 

It's not he's going to ever find out. 

Because if things continue to go the way that they are -- him remembering brief flashes of life only to forget them not long after -- then he has a feeling he won't ever regain his memory. Not unless there's some kind of miracle, and he knows already how unlikely that is. It's been at least a year since he had woken up on that beach, and he still hasn't remembered an actual memory since then. All he gets are brief flashes of the past and vague feelings of deja-vu, but that's it. 

And that's how it's probably going to stay. 

* * *

He can only vaguely remember stumbling along the beach and into the forest when he had first woken up, mind muddled and body in so much pain as a small-ish herd of walkers trailed behind him. 

He feels a little bit like that now, in a way. Mind numb, body aching from the countless scratches and bruises those men had left behind on his skin, and lungs burning as he fights to keep walking for a little while longer. The only things different about right now are that no walkers are chasing after him, he isn't on the verge of collapsing, the gaping hole in his face isn't bleeding, and he's actually wearing shoes this time. 

_Yeah, not that it makes much difference,_ he thinks bitterly. He continues to stumble along, body shaking like a leaf despite the boiling sun shining down from above. Somewhere in the distance, he can hear a walker groaning, but the sound is far enough away that he knows he won't have to worry about it unless he goes in that direction. Hell, even if he did run into the walker, his skin is covered in so much muck, blood, rot, and grime that he doubts the walker will even notice he isn't dead. 

He stares out at the trees as he walks, wondering how much longer he can keep going. 

And he doesn't mean how long he can keep walking -- because the brunet knows that he can walk for a long, long time. What he wants to know is how long he can keep surviving the way he is: just stumbling along, rarely eating, barely drinking... just walking. 

Days, perhaps? Months? Years even? He has no idea.

Before he can stop himself, he finds himself thinking of that woman in his dream -- his supposed mother. And, all of a sudden, he yearns to see her again, to feel her hugging him just once. Now that he thinks about it, he doesn't remember ever being hugged. The only touch he knows is the cruel and greedy way those men grabbed at him, the way they yanked at his hair, the way their dirty fingers dug into his waist, leaving countless bruises behind and-

_SNAP!_

He hears the sound before he processes the pain. A loud, metal clank filling the otherwise silent woods that's followed by a burning, near agonizing sensation in his left foot moments later. Before he can fully register what's happening, he is sent tumbling down to the forest floor, head hitting the ground and a short, pained scream escaping his lips as sharp metal claws close around his ankle. 

For a moment, he thinks he's been grabbed -- by a walker, person, or animal, he doesn't know. Either way, panic claws its way up his throat, and he tries kicking out his leg in an attempt to free himself, to attack his 'attacker,' only for another short scream to tear itself from his throat as the pain in his foot intensifies. Tears blur his vision, and he blinks furiously to try and clear them. In the end, he just wipes his eye, breathing shaky as he peers down at his foot and at the source of his pain. 

Once he sees what it is, he forces himself to bite back another cry -- this time one of frustration. Instead, he reaches a hand out toward his left foot, where he makes a vain attempt to free himself from the silver trap that has clamped around his foot. Blood is already pooling out from beneath the trapped limb, the skin torn not only by the metal teeth but also by his brief struggle. He swallows down the growing lump in his throat, leaning forward and burying his face in his knee as he tries to regain control of his breathing. 

Okay... okay... he needs to stay calm. He can't be panicking now; that would only make getting out of this trap harder than it has to be. And he needs to get out of this thing quick as possible -- walkers from miles away will probably be making their way over. The scent of blood draws those things in better than anything else can. 

So he pulls his face away from his knee, reaching his hand out again, brushing the leaves and dirt surrounding the trap to the side. He cringes at the sight of the blood that splurts out but forces the rest of his attention to studying the metal contraption. The material is rusty, and he has a feeling the thing had been made sometime before things went to shit, but that's not what he needs to worry about right now.

He tries scooting back, a task made difficult by the pain in his trapped foot. He glances at the area around him, searching for something to help release himself. Not finding anything, he carefully pulls his knife out from the sheath on his belt and tries wedging it into the space between the trap's teeth. Getting the blade in the gap is easy, but trying to release himself with it is next to impossible. He can't even get the claws to move an inch. After two minutes of trying and failing to move the metal teeth, he gives up. 

Okay, new plan.

Carefully, he reaches his hands out, wedging his fingers into the gap and gritting his teeth as a fresh wave of pain rolls through his ankle. Blood spurts out from his foot onto his fingers, but he ignores it as he grips the rusty metal claws with both hands. Mustering up all the strength he has left in his body, he pulls as hard as he can. He doesn't get very far before he has to let go, and he cries out again as the pain only intensifies. Tears trail down his cheeks, but this time, he doesn't bother trying to wipe them away.

There is no time to try anything else, though -- for right as he reaches out his hands again to make another attempt at freeing himself, a low groan sounds from somewhere nearby. He freezes, head shooting up as a walker stumbles into view a couple yards away. The undead creature spots him almost instantly, and a hungry growl escapes it. It lurches forward, rotting hands stretching out toward him. 

_Shit._

The brunet's hand finds his backpack, and he hurriedly pulls it off his shoulders, withdrawing the machete he had used to kill his captors around a full month before. He waits, shoulders tense as the walker stumbles closer and closer. It's only a couple feet away when another walker appears from the bushes behind it, a growl escaping it when the undead monster spots the fresh meat sitting before it. 

_Well then, I'm fucked._

He pushes away that thought and swallows down his panic, knuckles turning white from how hard he's gripping his machete. The walker comes closer... closer... and his survival instincts suddenly kick in. The pain in his ankle becomes distant, and he raises his machete, gritting his teeth as his vision zeroes in on the walker in front of him. The walker finally reaches him, lurching forward, and right as it's dropping to its knees, teeth clicking together as it prepares to dig into his throat, he swings his machete down, right into its skull.

The walker goes limp; he rips the machete out and prepares himself for the next walker. But there isn't just one left anymore, much to his dismay. While he had been dealing with the first walker, six more had appeared, drawn in by the smell of blood and the sounds of a struggle, and he feels the panic begin to claw its way back up his throat again as they all shuffle closer to him, throats making low, gurgling noises that make him want to gag.

He reaches back into his backpack hurriedly, taking out the gun he has yet to use. His fingers move quickly, undoing the safety and aiming it at the closest walker. He grinds his teeth together, finger moving to the trigger, and then he hesitates. Gunfire is loud, so should he really be shooting a gun? But it's the quickest way, and even if it attracts more walkers, it might give him the time he needs to get this trap off his foot and escape. So, keeping the gun trained on the walker's head, he presses his finger down, takes a deep breath, and-

An arrow goes through the walker's head.

Confusion thrums through him, followed by fear as a group of people burst out from a cluster of bushes. They take out the group of walkers in a matter of seconds before promptly turning around to face him.

Men.

They're all men.

The brunet feels his heart freeze in his chest. Memories of the last group of men he had run into flash through his mind. He leans back, now aiming the gun at them, and starts to try and get up, momentarily forgetting about the trap. The metal teeth dig into his skin as a reminder, and he inhales sharply at the pain, nearly dropping the gun. 

Three of the men raise their own guns, eyes narrowed. 

Then, there's a low, eerie whistle that echoes throughout the treetops. Immediately, the men lower their guns.

The brunet feels his heartbeat picking up as his eye darts around, trying to figure out where the whistle had come from. His vision eventually focuses on a man who saunters up to the front of the group. This man, the brunet decides, is clearly the leader. Through his pain and panic, he then takes note of the man's clean clothes, and the first thought that goes through his mind is that the man somehow has the required materials to keep his clothes clean. 

The man motions for the rest to step back before turning to the teen still caught in the trap, a broad grin on his face and a baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire clenched in his hand. 

"Well then, this certainly isn't something you see every day," the man says with a chuckle, looking totally unaffected by the gun that is being aimed at his head, "you sure you even know how to fire that thing, kid?" 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Haha! Here's Negan!
> 
> Tell me what you think, comments are always appreciated, and if you see any errors in the text, please let me know so I can fix them :D

**Author's Note:**

> This work is named after a song called 'Chameleon' written and sung by Blixemi on Youtube. Each chapter will be titled after one of the lyrics. 
> 
> The title may not make much sense, because what does a chameleon have to do with losing memory. But the song is about trauma and someone who changes how they think and act to fit in. I thought this would be a good fit for this story for many different reasons, and you'll see why as more chapters come out.


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